Wrought versus Wreaked Wreak versus Reek

Wrought versus Wreaked Wreak versus Reek There are a lot of people who are going to tell you wrought is the wrong word to use in the context of havoc, but Im here to tell you it isnt. Read on and be liberated! Together well wreak havoc on the Grammar Nazis! To understand why Im going against the mainstream opinion, you need to know only one thing: I have a darned good source to back me up. To begin with, lets look at some word meanings: Wreaked: Caused Wrought: Worked Now lets look at some sentences for the sake of context: The hurricane has caused havoc in the town The hurricane has wreaked havoc in the town. The hurricane has worked havoc in the town. The hurricane has wrought havoc in the town. Guess what? Theyre all correct. Of course, if you were using wrought under the impression that it was the past tense of wreak, youd be wrong, but intention doesnt show or matter in this case. Some may say that worked havoc is a trifle odd, but it has also been suggested by many as a rather more modern word that could be used to replace wreaking which we seldom do these days. However, there is one thing that a hurricane never, ever does: The hurricane wrecked havoc. This would imply that a remarkably tidy hurricane arrived in a crazy town that was in a state of utter chaos, and tidied everything away neatly, thereby depriving the citizens of the havoc they were enjoying so much. Truth be told, I could use a hurricane like that around my house. Wrought vs Wreaked I mentioned earlier I had a good source to go against the conventional wisdom of the meaning of these two words. To tell you the truth, I always thought wrought and wreaked were interchangeable, at least in the context of havoc, but my source is rather better than the encyclopedia I carry around in my own head. My authority is none other than the Oxford English Dictionary, and you dont get a posher source than that. So next time someone thinks theyre clever and tries to tell you that wrought is the wrong word to use with havoc or chaos, you can tell them theyre Grammar Nazis of the worst kind. That is, theyre the kind thats altogether adamant about being grammatically wrong, and you can refer them to the Oxford Dictionary to make your point. Moving on, there is a word that has nothing to do with havoc, but is often mistakenly used as such. Wreak vs Reek: The very bad smell of havoc The air force bombers reeked havoc on our enemies Do you think the military has mastered the art of creating the worst ever stink bombs? Or is it possible that our enemies smelled so strongly of havoc that our air force got a whiff of it? I didnt even know havoc had a smell. You could say: The disgusting odor of the sewers wreaked chaos among residents as they fled the dreadful miasma. But you could never say: Gosh that wreaks of ammonia! or The wreak of the sewers was disgusting! Well, I suppose you could write it if you wanted to, but it would be wrong, and everybody who reads it would know it was wrong. Generally speaking, a bad odor reeks and can only wreak if it causes something else that is quite unpleasant to happen. (Photo courtesy of NOAA Photo Library)